Stream 9
Incarceration and Co-op Solutions
Stream lead: Jessica Gordon-Nembhard (City University of New York)
Description:
Several countries around the world have begun to use cooperative business ownership as a strategy to support incarcerated and previously incarcerated people. There are examples in practice of using cooperative enterprise ownership to support and empower those incarcerated and those re-entering society, to increase their economic options, enable them to support themselves and their families (inside and out), and pay restitution, as well as to develop their human and social capital, enhance their integration into a community, and reduce recidivism. There are various types of ownership structures inside prisons, from social co-ops employing and/or allowing incarcerated people to be members, to incarcerated people creating and owning their own worker-co-ops, to credit unions providing bank accounts for incarcerated people. There are more and growing examples of ways that co-ops support previously incarcerated workers particularly in housing and employment.
For this international UN Year of Cooperatives 2025, this research stream calls on researchers and practitioners to advance our understanding of the ways cooperatives transform the economic and social experiences of those incarcerated and those previously incarcerated; and the potential of co-ops to advance just and sustainable economies for people who have experiences in the criminal legal system. Suggested topics for this research stream are:
Case study analysis of specific examples of incarcerated worker co-ops, co-ops in prisons, and co-ops that employ incarcerated workers. What are the challenges? What are some best practices? Are there effective enabling laws and/or ecosystem supports?
Case study analysis of specific examples of co-ops owned and/or used by previously incarcerated workers. What are the challenges? What are some best practices? Are there effective enabling laws and/or ecosystem supports?
Statistical analyses, quantitative, and/or qualitative studies of the benefits of co-op ownership for incarcerated workers and/or previously incarcerated workers.
Analysis of the models and best practices throughout the world of using worker cooperatives and cooperative ownership with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. Evaluate various ownership models, strategies for ownership, and cooperative economics and business development with people who have experience in the criminal legal system.
Analysis of curricula for teaching cooperative economics and co-op business development to incarcerated and/or previously incarcerated people. Are there specific or unique elements to include and ways to approach teaching people with these lived experiences?
What is the role of cooperative governance, what democratic governance elements are effective and/or essential, and are there best practices in democratic participation and decision-making with incarcerated and/or previously incarcerated workers? What are the challenges?
Support system analyses of legal and institutional supports and policies for co-op development in prisons and/or with previously incarcerated people. What are some enabling laws, ecosystem supports, bureaucratic policies, legal opportunities and requirements, etc., that enable the development of co-ops with incarcerated or previously incarcerated people? What are best policies/practices that keep the model sustainable and successful? What policy recommendations are there?